Look back on the elementary school days when we were tasked with the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Did you ever respond with, “I want to work in insurance!” I’m going to generalize here, but let me guess… your answer is a glaring “NO.”
Let’s be honest, those of us in the insurance industry fall into the industry. Insurance professionals cultivate their knowledge, skills, and ability through tried-and-true efforts in real time. While many insurance professionals have enough cumulative experience to have “degrees in insurance”, there’s no insurance university! Without an insurance university, employers in the industry must be tactical with their talent sourcing efforts to fill critical roles in their companies.
When an insurance company is seeking to onboard new talent, it’s reasonable for them to question if internal HR professionals have enough “courses in insurance” to identify qualified candidates. While internal HR teams are astute in managing the hiring process and on-boarding new personnel, it’s common to outsource talent acquisition to tenured insurance recruiting firms who have tenured experts in the insurance space. Here’s a deeper look at why:
Bridging the Gap Between HR Professionals & Insurance Talent Acquisition Specialists
Internal HR professionals excel at traditional hiring practices and integrating new talent into the workplace. Insurance companies call upon talent acquisition firms, composed of tenured industry recruiters with “degrees in insurance,” to fill the gap between HR processes and industry knowledge. These talent acquisition specialists are equipped to support insurance companies with sourcing, vetting, and identifying strictly qualified individuals.
Connection to Passive Candidates
When insurance companies decide to engage an outside specialized insurance recruiting firm for their hiring process, they ultimately make the intelligent business decision to gain access to a wider pool of candidates. These insurance recruiting firms have connections to expansive professional networks, full of insurance industry talent, that are typically out of reach for internal HR teams. Insurance industry headhunters in the US source talent from both actively looking AND passive candidate pools. Passive candidates are critical to the hiring process as they’re the tenured professionals with the aforementioned “degrees in insurance.”
Ability to SELL your company
Given that passive candidates are placed in roles with other companies, a level of ingenuity is required to inspire a career pivot. The top talents are rarely “looking” and need to be “sold” on the company to make a shift. Insurance companies entrust the hiring processes to insurance recruiting firms as they receive the service of talent acquisition specialists selling your firm!
Feedback. Feedback. Feedback.
Perhaps the most valuable resource talent acquisition firms provide is feedback. Talent acquisition specialists receive feedback from their candidate pools on employer brand, reputation, and reasons they would/wouldn’t work for a particular company. Internal HR professionals are unfortunately not privy to this critical aspect of insurance industry recruiting and therefore unable to support their company in this reflective practice. Alternatively, insurance recruiting firms are able to provide companies with this candid feedback, so they can tighten their processes or products. With tighter processes and/or products, insurance companies can continue to grow and thrive.
Closing Thoughts
Insurance companies are trusting their hiring processes to industry partnered talent acquisition firms because it’s a sound business decision. It’s insurance experts identifying other insurance experts.
To learn more about how the Blair Kenner Group can support your insurance company with innovative and scalable staffing solutions, contact us! Let’s have a conversation.